Lordship

Right heavenly father we come before you tonight.

Thanking you Lord for your precious word.

Thank you Lord that every single word that is is written here was inspired by your Holy Spirit was meant to be taken very seriously. I pray heavenly father as we look tonight subject the Lordship that you would deal with our hearts in such a way is that we will understand Lord what that means and father. I realize that I as a Christian is a pastor come very, very far short from what you have called me to be a heavenly father, I would pray that tonight you would deal with each of our hearts in such a way as we would have a great desire to be obedient to you and Lord, that we might call you Lord and Master, and that we would believe it from our heart. Heavenly father, we would see that the master slave relationship is a wonderful relationship.

It has to do with a perfect master and slave to her desire to to please that master got indirect disloyalty. This passage may Jesus be uplifted and glorified men's congregation beatified by what is said keep my lips from era and is in Jesus holy and precious thing that we pray.

Amen. You may be seated. I was at a funeral service several years ago for a man whose family gone to my church when I was in my first church in Creekmore and this family was very godly family. The, the the wife and the children love the Lord were deeply committed, but the father the. The husband was not and I can't remember a prayer meeting that we had that somebody in that family did not say please pray for Sam. Please pray for my husband.

Please pray for my father Sam was a womanizer and a drunkard and when he would drink he would get very mean and he would beat his wife and his children, and it is a bad situation had gone by their house on several occasions with intent to witness to.

Amen.

And each time I start to witness to him and he would get mad and sometimes he would just blessed me out sometimes curse me in and I just tell me even no uncertain terms that to get out of his house, losing a car wreck and he was driving drunk.

He ran off the side of the road he hit a tree and he died instantly. I was pastoring in Charlotte at the time and heard about the accident and heard about his death and I decided to go to the funeral because I cared very much for his family is all which is funeral, and as I was riding down. I wondered how that the pastor was gonna handle the funeral service and the pastor got up in the pulpit. He began to share with us that that Sam was in heaven that he was with the Lord and his sins had been washed away by the blood of Christ and that he was now finally with his heavenly father.

When the service was over I got him off to the side of I said I need to ask you a question us to do we know, the same man said addict did this man that that you were talking about us and you said that he was in heaven. He said that his sins had been washed away by the blood of Christ. I said this man was an unrepented adulterer.

He was a drunkard as far as I know he died that way. I said do do we know, the same man at any said Willison. I talked to him and said he told me that when he was eight years old. He walked down the aisle of the church and he took a preacher's hand and he prayed the prayer and accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior. He said I don't believe in this Lordship salvation stuff. He said I believe if a person accepts Jesus as their Savior then it doesn't matter how he lives, and I thought to myself what in the world have we done with the gospel. What have we done to the gospel why we so watered down the truth that a minister of the gospel can say if you just quote the right formula. If you pray that the right words then God Almighty is obligated to save you. Can we divide Jesus up and receive him as Savior and reject him as Lord.

The answer is no, not do believe with all my heart that we must understand that our salvation is by grace through faith plus nothing. Our good works do not merit salvation any way shape or form but if you think genuinely born again then the grace of God. It's been applied your heart.

Then there will be good works that will follow.

They are not the cause of your salvation. They are the fruit of your salvation. So the question I'm asking is this what is a Christian what what does a Christian look like if someone is being genuinely born again by the spirit of God, should there be a change in his life. And Paul said yes. Second Corinthians 517 if any man be in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed away behold all things are become new. There many metaphors that we read in the Scripture that that we really like that deal with the relationship between Jesus and us he is the good Shepherd. We are his sheep.

He is the, the, the husband we are the bride.

He is the father. We are the children. He is the teacher. We are the student the is the example we are his followers. We want those metaphors don't wait what we like them because we picture ourselves as the Lamb around the shoulders of the good Shepherd.

We picture our self is the bride of Christ, that Christ cherishes in the doors we picture our self is as children who the father loves we picture our sales as the students who were right there at the at the teachers feet just just taking in his wisdom and gleaning from it and loving it.

We like the idea of us be in the followers of Jesus being our perfect role model. Those are analogies that that touch our hearts and and we ate. We like that but I want to push a little bit harder tonight only stretch you a little further only share a metaphor with you that we might not like so much and in fact we might feel uncomfortable with it.

We might even want to run from it, but I'm convinced it is one of the most important crews in the Scripture, Jesus is our master and we are his slaves. 11 years ago Cindy and I went to the code of an actual add to pastor seminar and we heard John MacArthur speak and he was speaking on Christ, the head of the church. He said some things that convicted me and challenged me and he said some things that just bothered me when I first heard them and he said this, he said if you're Christian you are a slave.

I hate slavery.

To my great heroes are John Newton and and William Wilberforce for four decades fault with all their heart slavery in England and they play it in a bag and they fault and they would not give up and finally, slavery was abolished in England and they were champions in and I had always just praise God for these men they meant a lot to me. I would encourage you to watch the movie honest God and that movie is the true story of the heart is the African and Jamaican slave trade to America people ripped away from their families and taken away to a land many of these sleighs being beaten while they were on the ships and an end. Many of them just beaten into submission is one particular scene where one on one particular ship that there was of a lack of food and they realize that they didn't have enough to dig had to get to Comerica and so they took whites and they tied them to some of the feet of the sleighs and threw them overboard to drown them so they would have enough food for themselves. These kinds of things sicken us and some of my Civil War history books. I have pictures of slaves whose backs are just ripped to pieces and lacerated to such a point.

You can even recognize that his skin we should be angered and we should be absolutely repulsed by that. So, I realize that I preach only us, there may be some misunderstanding and some revulsion. Stick with me when MacArthur was preaching on the Jesus slave relationship.

We had a time for question and answers and there was an Afro-American pastor that stood up and said I probably just need to say something, he said, I I am the pastor of a black congregation at any said the people in my church are just four generations removed from the reality of horrible slavery in the United States and he said if I go back and I tell my people that God has called them to be sleighs that I don't think they're gonna take it very well. MacArthur said sir I would agree that it is a volatile issue and understand why your congregation would be upset with the idea just be in four generations away from the reality of it, but he said you need to look at that the at the people that Paul was preaching to, and the people that Jesus was preaching to the population in the Roman Empire at that time 60% of that population were slaves and there was terrible's physical and and and mental and emotional abuse that was going on within the slave system, but yet Jesus chose to use that very metaphor, knowing that it would be offensive.

Jesus absolutely refused to to sugarcoat the gospel remember the encounter Jesus with the rich young ruler of the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, what must I do to inherit eternal life, and that Jesus said to him, will have you kept the commandments. This guy was either an unbelievably deceived man of the greatest liar that ever live forever. He said oh yeah I've kept the commandments from my youth up.

And Jesus said okay. Then do this one more thing, go sell everything that you have. Take that money give it to the poor and then come and follow me and the man walked away. Sadly, for his possessions were great. So it seems that Jesus at that point in time was almost purposely offensive. Jesus is doing the same thing here with this master slave relationship, what is he doing he's digging into our heart will you follow me, will you obey me, will you give up your rights.

What we you humble yourself when you treasure me so deeply that you will take the offenses listen to this carefully. The single central foundational tenet of Christianity is this Jesus Christ is Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church to follow Jesus means unconditional surrender. So the true gospel cannot be divorced from the reality of his Lordship. When Jesus called people to follow him.

He's not seeking companions or buddies that that will that that they can entertain with his miracles. He is calling people to yield unreservedly to his Lordship in the New Testament there, two great words for Lord one is Corey Yost and the other is the spotless and the work those two words are very important and they mean either Lord or master Murray Harris is said the is that Corey Yost means sovereign Lord and that the spot case that particular word that we get desperate from means means absolute Lord. The word slave in the Greek is due loss. How important is it Corey Yost appears a bit appears 741 times in the in the New Testament and the word due loss appears 150 times so it must be highly significant. Now my text for this evening's was Romans chapter 1 verse one. I read it from the first edition of the Holman Christian standard version and what it said was this Paul, a slave of Christ. Probably not what your translations say it wasn't your translation probably said either servant of Christ or bondservant of Christ the King James version, the American Standard version.

The ESV new King James version all the new international all use the word servant instead of slaves and it was very interesting in the second edition of the Holman Christian standard Bible. It was changed to servant what should the word be. The word is due loss you go to a good Greek concordance you go to a a good theological dictionary like candles and read what do loss means it means slave and only slave wanted all these translations change it to servant because they knew the ugly baggage associated with the word slave.

They knew that you would hear that word and immediately you would think of the patrol slave with a weapon in his hand and a sneer on his lips. They knew that you think of families ripped apart and scars in misery, so they chose the wrong word to avoid the baggage I understand the motive, but I don't think that's acceptable, we must work through the baggage to get to the truth. Listen to these words from John MacArthur body of the Christian is a slave in Christ is master is almost totally missing from the vocabulary of contemporary evangelical Christian Christianity.

Not only is slave a bad word, loaded with political incorrectness, but our generation. Also loves the concepts of freedom and personal fulfillment.

Modern and postmodern people crave autonomy and as the churches become increasingly worldly. The biblical truth of our duty to him as our absolute Lord and Master has all but disappeared from the evangelical consciousness. The church in our generation has reduced all of saving faith and Christian discipleship to a thoughtless but more politically correct cliché.

A personal relationship with Jesus. The ambiguity of the phrase reflects the destructive vagueness with which evangelicals have been handling and mishandling the gospel for the past several decades is if Christ could be someone's intimate friend without being that person's Lord, don't you think of Paul's greeting to the Roman church. How does he identify himself does he say I Paul, the learned Bible scholar who sat under the, the teaching of the great Gamaliel of Israel know does he say I am Paul the spiritual bigshot. Note to say I am Paul, the author of half of the New Testament and he called me out of all the people in the world to be the apostle to the Gentiles node. What is a sign is as I Paul, the slave of Christ. What would he choose that term.

Number one because the Holy Spirit inspired him to use that term it in the he had to write it down exactly as the Holy Spirit told him to ride it in the Holy Spirit use the word due loss which means slave also number two. Remember this when was Paul safety was saved on the Damascus Road and he was saved when when he was probably on his horse riding on the Damascus Road going to get personal letters to to to persecute more Christians in Jesus Christ. The glorified risen Lord stepped out in front of him scared him so bad he fell off his horse shaking and trembling in the dirt and what did he do he called them Lord. He called him master, he said, Lord, what would you have me to do. People if we can get one glimpse one glimpse of the glory of Jesus and nobody would be complaining about being his slave. If we could see for one second the love that Jesus has for us in his eyes than any wrong attitude toward him as master would melt out of our hearts just like that I think of Peter Sitton's prison sale when the guard finally came in and said Peter it's time to go. Peter Nero was ordered your execution and will it take you out with your nail you to across what did Peter say that.

Did Peter say will do you not have any idea who I am. I Peter I'm the one who preach the great sermon on Pentecost, I'm Peter. I'm the one who who was given the great vision of the sheet that came down with all the and I'm Peter on the one who leaves these disciples. I'm Peter on the spiritual bigshot owner Peter looked at the cross. It was before aim is and when you crucify me, crucify me upside down from not worthy to be crucified by Jesus, Peter realize that Jesus is Lord and he was his due loss was a difference in a slave and a servant, a slave is purchased and owned first Corinthians 6 Paul is calling the church a car to get serious about about living holy before God and man, and he explains why they should do that. This was his explanation in verse 20 for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. What was the purchase price for our salvation. Peter explains that at first Peter 118 and 19, just for you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Jesus as a lamb without spot or blemish with me start out by saying this. If you choose to be obedient on the basis of your feelings. You will never be an obedient child.

Why should I rejoice ever be in a slave because my master love me so much he died for me.

That's why it is love for me was that great and would he be an abusive master. Absolutely not what he always do what's best for me absolutely would not.

Sometimes it didn't feel like that does but when when when somebody is hurt us and and and really done us damage and he tells us to forgiving. Sometimes we don't want to do that than feel like what what we want to do all or maybe there's a scantily clad woman and and are asked immediately or are focused on current and we know that's wrong and we don't want to move our eyes, we want to keep focusing on that, and yet we know what he's called us to do.

Maybe I'm being led to witness to a neighbor and I know that's what I should do. I know that's what I'm being called to do, but I don't really want to because if I did that I might get rejected and my feelings will get hurt or maybe I'm being called on the foreign mission field, and I don't like the idea of losing my job security and Ambien and an avid to live in a very dangerous place in so I don't really want to do that. Maybe God's calling me to give sacrificially I will let go of my money for those things for my good.

Absolutely there for my good. And why should you do it. Here's the primary reason because Jesus is your master because Jesus loves you more than anybody else has ever loved you, or ever will love you and because he called you to do it. He is your master and your essence slave called to be obedient. A servant is not owned a slave, he is a servant is not purchased a slave he is have a pastor friend in Florida who is a deacon in his churchy I think had one of most powerful testimonies of ever heard of this. This particular deacon came to know Christ and before his his conversion. He was very harsh and cruel man. He drank like a fish. He was a brawler and everybody knew the best thing to do would just stay on his way, but he had a five-year-old daughter in this five-year-old daughter had had leukemia. She was going down very quickly and on Christmas Eve, the, the day before Christmas. They took her to the doctor the doctors told the parents that she didn't have long to live there would take her back home for Christmas and bring her back to the hospital at the day after Christmas and so this is kind of what was going on and that night the man went out drinking.

He came back he and his wife in order going back to bed and he saw is that his little girl had dragged herself down from her bedroom and was knelt down in prayer five years old male knelt down in prayer and she was up under the Christmas tree as we stood there at the door and he listened intently to his daughter to his daughters prayer and she said, Lord, my my mama told me that I'm to be with you real soon and I'm never going to get tired and I'm never going to hurt again and I'm really looking forward to being with you and I don't really need a whole lot for Christmas but she said I'm asking for one thing I want you to save my daddy, I want you to I will.

I want you to give me a new daddy. She said we sing a song at our church. It is well with my soul. She said I wanted to be well with my daddy so and she was so worn out. She just laid over on the floor there and fell asleep.

The father walked over to her, tears rolling down his cheeks and he picked her up in his arms and carried her up and he put her in her bed. He took her in. He came back down to the very spot where she was and he got down on his knees and he said Lord is that I've been an absolute fool, and it took a little five-year-old girl show me what a fool of being a said Lord have been fighting you for over 28 years and I'm miserable. He said Lord I'm asking you to forgive me my sins.

I'm turning my life over you. I'm asking you Lord to to do with me whatever you want to do with me but save my soul for all of eternity.

He got up off his knees.

He went into the kitchen.

He went to the cabinet took every liquor bottle he had. He poured all of his liquor down the drain. He went to the magazine rack and he got all his dirty magazines he took about the backyard and burn them and he came back he and he flipped on the light of his bedroom and and he said to his wife, honey.

Get up. God save me God's given you a new husband. I'll never be the same again and and she got up. They danced around the room and he said I gotta go tell Sandy said she was praying for me just tonight she was praying for me for my soul and I ran into the little girl's bedroom and he ran over to her need to jostle her. She didn't move any jostle little harder and she she still didn't move a mother came over. She took her hand and stuck it down into the pajama top and the heart stopped beating and she turned around to her husband and she said Sandy's with Jesus, tears rolling down his cheeks. He reached over and he picked the little girl up and he walked right back down the very same spot where they both had prayed he put her little head down and in his lap.

That beautiful blonde hair covered his whole leg and he began to pray and he said Lord I ask you to do me one more favor tonight tell my little girl that you answered her prayer that she's got a new daddy that it is well with her daddy soul. I talked to that pastor for and asking the question because he told me that that that deacon's conversion was so radical that it had an effect on the entire church and answered I sent to him us and what was the difference between him and and just the average churchgoer at your church and he said this is the difference absolute surrender what he meant was this, this man understood that Jesus was Lord and he was his slave. So there are huge differences between slaves and servants. As I said before, there's a lot of baggage with that metaphor and understand that this is something that we should be excited about.

I think it's something we ought to be really excited about, but because this is that this is the truth. Slavery to Christ is the only true liberty in John chapter 8 verse 32 Jesus said this you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

And if the sun set you free, you shall be free indeed that before the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was in the southern states he saw a slave owner coming out of a bar at half drunk and a slaveowner screamed at one of his female slaves to come over and unties horse that the girl didn't do it quite as fast as he was hoping for.

And so he reached back and took his hand and slapped her right in the face, knocked her down on the ground bled eagerly up.

She tried to get up and hit her again and she fell back down the ground. Abraham Lincoln walked over to them is that man you have no right to treat her that way since she's my property.

So treat her any way that I want to his mate. What's it all buyer from you since she's not for sale is I'll pay you twice the price for that for the normal price for up for a female slave he's okay if you're that crazy. I'll be glad to take your money he paid them right there on the spot. The Abraham Lincoln walked over to the girl and picked up her hand and she stood up he took his handkerchief out and he wiped the blood off her lip and he said I just bought you from this tyrant. You don't belong to him anymore and said now you're free. I'm set you free. You can go and she said are you telling me I can leave this city go anywhere I want to. He said that's exactly right so you telling me I can work for anybody. I want to work for. He said that's exactly right.

She said hallelujah and she ran down the road as fast as she could. She got about two blocks and she stopped. She turned around and she came back and when she came back she just went right back to Abraham Lincoln said you told me that I can work for anybody our work for right they said that's right. And she said that I can work for anybody that I won't work for our work for you. In her mind being a slave to Abraham Lincoln would be a joy. Listen Lordship salvation is not a burdensome stifling joy killing truth. It's the exact opposite. Surrender to Jesus is the enemy of joy. Hebrews 12 122.

The writer of Hebrews said, let us lay aside every weight in the sand that does so easily beset us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, Jesus went to the cross and voluntarily suffered our hail for us so that we could be free, not free to sin and be disobedient so that we could be free to be obedient to him, people you hate Lordship salvation are people who do not understand the heart of our Savior.

His commands are not grievous, but they are joyous. This life we serve one of two Masters of the Scripture says that there are only two seeds are the seed of the woman in the seed of the serpent. There are those who are under the authority of Christ. There are those who, under the authority of Satan as Satan's greatest tool I believe is deception's purpose is to kill, steal and destroy any has all these cunning schemes that he uses to to to Trotta's cell is on the idea that he gives us freedom which is only deep, deep bondage. AA tells us stuff AA tells us stuff like that that will buy into these drugs. If you just take them there will ease your emotional pain and you'll feel so much better and it will set you free, and those drugs are taken and there's a bondage that created all or you can you can cure this emotional pain that you're experiencing right now by getting involved in this immoral relationship was that you can really have an exciting life by adding pornography to your life. It'll just give you this this this bright buzz this great excitement or if you just get the revenge from front from this person that hurt you.

That's gonna really set you free, and we get into that we give into it, and that bondage is absolutely stifling. But Jesus is become a slave and I will call you friends I will break the yoke of oppression in your life.

I will break addictions and habits and obsessions and bondage is. I will set you free. And you will be free indeed home to close with a statement that John MacArthur made to me this just puts it all in perspective. Thus he declared his Lordship without hesitation or apology and he made it clear that true faith in Jesus begins with an unconditional surrender of the sinners heart and therefore the very spirit of saving faith is comparable to the remainder of the slave is a glorious surrender is the supreme joy of every true believer's heart to be Christ's slave, but remove that spirit of submission in the most profound kind of admiration for Christ is not even true faith that all yielding completely to Christ Lordship is that vital an element of true saving faith. Therefore, the proclamation of his Lordship is an absolutely necessary component of the true gospel is probably heavenly father we dealt with very serious subject. Tonight we pray father that she would help us that the great desire of our heart might be total submission to the Lord who loves us more than anyone ever has that anyone ever could help us heavenly father to realize that you are a good God, a God who always wants what's best for us, a God who wants us to to enjoy and him and to to joy in our salvation. Heavenly father God and directs us in our lives that that we might see this truth and that we might be moved by such a way as that following Christ will be the great joy of our heart. Help us to realize Lord is John Piper so much abilities that the joy of the Lord is.

It is the great motivator in our lives as Christians to be what you would have us to be and to be fulfilled as brothers and sisters in Christ. We love you Jesus, we thank you for loving us. Help us Lord that that we might be the slaves of Christ that you would have us to be that Lord we might realize that's the greatest thing that we could be. And that's the greatest honor that we can have this in Jesus name we pray. Amen